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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27827548">No-Win? No Way</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TBs_LMC/pseuds/TheMoments'>TheMoments (TBs_LMC)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mass Effect Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Because Kaidan wants to wait until this is over, Because they've been flirting, Biotic Shepard (Mass Effect), Biotics (Mass Effect), Bombs, Canon Rewrite, I don't believe in no-win scenarios, M/M, Mass Effect 1, Matter of Life and Death, Pre-Relationship, Virmire (Mass Effect)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:14:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,205</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27827548</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TBs_LMC/pseuds/TheMoments</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>John Shepard has been practicing in secret. Nobody else has any idea. He does this because he doesn't believe in no-win scenarios, not where his team is concerned. And he gets to put all that planning into practice a lot sooner than he thought, with unforeseen - but not unpleasant - consequences.</p><p>Or</p><p>It takes bombs exploding all around and impossible, inhuman feats of biotics for us to admit we're in love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kaidan Alenko/Male Shepard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>No-Win? No Way</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set during the Virmire mess in Mass Effect. Veers from canon at the point at which Shepard, in the game, makes the decision that condemns either Ashley or Kaidan.</p><p>My first Mass Effect-verse fanfic.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His mind is racing faster than even he can comprehend. There <em>has</em> to be a way out of this. No-win situations are unacceptable.</p><p>
  <em>Elysium.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Torfan.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>How many times he’d pulled his team’s asses out of certain death?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>How many times they’d pulled his?</em>
</p><p>There isn’t a world where he’s going to lose <em>anyone</em> and certainly not because of Saren and most <em>emphatically</em> not on this piece of shit hellhole of a planet.</p><p>No. He’s never let the odds beat him before and Virmire is not going to change that.</p><p>“Joker, change of plans. Rendezvous with the team at the AA tower, then get the <em>Normandy</em> the hell out of here.”</p><p>Kaidan’s eyes snap to John’s.</p><p>Garrus stares, realizes, worries, understands, all in the blink of a Turian eye. Nods. Knows. There isn’t a Shepard without Alenko.</p><p>“Go <em>now</em>!” John barks. Everyone else takes off to help Ash, last-minute glances ignored. He races to Kaidan’s side.</p><p>“Commander, what—?”</p><p>“Don’t you ‘Commander’ me, Alenko, not now, not after…” His voice trails off as he concentrates on the keypad.</p><p>“There’s no way we’re getting out of here, Shepard.”</p><p>John stops. Looks at him. Grins almost maniacally, he figures is what it must look like given Kaidan’s reaction.</p><p>“We’re both biotics.”</p><p>“We can’t withstand a nuclear blast!”</p><p>“We won’t have to,” John says as Kaidan completes the final sequence. As hell breaks loose far away where Ashley is being rescued. Where soon his crew and his ship will be leaving the planet without its XO or its XO’s deathbed obsession.</p><p>But only briefly.</p><p>“I don’t understand! We don’t have any <em>time</em>!” Kaidan never raises his voice until he does.</p><p>John rushes to him, grips his biceps so hard he can see the slight twitching wince on Kaidan’s face. “I’m buying it for us.” Kaidan frowns. “We shouldn’t have waited until this was all over.”</p><p>Realization. Agony. Adoration. Fear. Love. Confusion. Kaidan’s face softens in spite of it all.</p><p>
  <em>John has been practicing his throws and his pulls. He’s been practicing for hours and hours and hours with Liara. Below-decks scuttlebutt said they were an item. Even Kaidan asked – twice! – about him and Liara. “Dr. T’Soni and I are strictly professional.” Kaidan’s belief in their fledgling flirtatiousness tempered by confusion given what he’d probably been told about seeing the human and the asari sequester themselves in the cargo deck, no prying eyes allowed.</em>
</p><p>John’s been practicing like hell and he’s never understood why he was so determined, so focused, so thoroughly obsessed that even Liara complained that he was working her too hard trying to learn to throw a Singularity. Never until now because <em>yes</em> this is why, this is why!</p><p>Because what nobody knows, not even Liara, is that John’s focus hasn’t ever been to learn the same shit everyone else does. Her and Kaidan and him can all push, pull and throw. So what? Dime a dozen.</p><p>John’s known from the beginning that to defeat Saren’s plans he’s going to need something bigger, more special, something that can beat not Saren at all, but <em>Sovereign</em>.</p><p>Something he’s dubbed Pullarity.</p><p>“Hold on tight to me, Kaidan,” John orders. “So tight that it’ll take you a week to peel your armor plating from mine.”</p><p>Kaidan obeys, speechless, not comprehending what’s happening, sure that he and this man he’s now doing a closer approximation of hugging than ever before, are about to die. He thinks of his parents. Of himself as a child. Of the dog he’d once owned. Of Shepard. Always a wisp of a thought away from his mind, Shepard.</p><p>All John has to do is fling them far enough away for Joker to swoop back in the aftermath and scoop them up mid-air. No big. Right?</p><p>“Hold on!” John barks, arms rising, swirling, whirling above his head, around their bodies, faster and faster they move, a blur, Kaidan’s face comes forward against John’s shoulder, arms around his chest, legs as intertwined as they can be with both men standing. He will die, be vaporized, in the arms of the man he’s fallen for so fast and so hard he isn’t even fully aware of the impact of that until right <em>now </em>and lets out a small gasp as it sinks home at the same time as he feels the push-pull of the mass effect field whip up around them.</p><p>“Full stasis-barrier combo <em>now</em>!” John yells and suddenly Kaidan <em>sees</em> like a tapestry has just woven itself into place before his very eyes, a puzzle with all its pieces, a roadmap with all lines and roads and rivers marked and he yelps out a yowling, howling laugh and bursts forth the strongest stasis-barrier one-two sucker punch he can muster. Blood trickles from his right nostril, a flash of white-hot light in his mind as the L2 pain overload bursts into his brain and then the sensation of movement, flying, bullet-fast whipping, zipping, mass effect projectile, them, pushing pushing pushing from behind, barrier weakening, must hold must hold!</p><p>Blood gushes from Kaidan’s left nostril. He almost passes out. “Hard stasis boost-pull combo <em>now</em>!” John roars into the com and then “Joker, flyby pickup, track us, we’ll make it out of the blast zone!”</p><p>Joker’s response lost in the explosion, deafening, bright, <em>we’re dying now I think, no I know, I love you, John, I love you and I’ll find you.</em> And thoughts are mingling and he hears John’s voice in his mind <em>Finally, it’s not just me, there isn’t a world, there’s no Shepard without Alenko, not going to happen</em> and he <em>feels</em> the thoughts like touches, caresses in his mind.</p><p>And then skirting across a treetop and one loud, guttural roar of agony, pulling every last ounce of energy from two human bodies who shouldn’t <em>can’t</em> aren’t able to <em>won’t</em> survive an onslaught that would leave a <em>Justicar</em> weeping from crushed bones. One more, the last, a burst of energy left in reserve and it burns hot and fast and propels and fizzles.</p><p>A whine, familiar, barked orders in his ear and Kaidan’s falling, flying, forced, tumbling over and over and over <em>this is it, we’re gone now, good-bye</em> and he isn’t going to let go no matter what happens and he holds tight, arms locked, energy gone, drained, fleeing with consciousness <em>I love you</em> and <em>I’ll never let go </em>and he’s gone.</p><p>* * * * *</p><p>John wakes and his mouth is dry and everything hurts. He sees Chakwas hovering and his head turns to the right where Kaidan is being helped by Ash to a sitting position in another bed and he thinks <em>I love you, too</em> and Kaidan’s eyes are wide when he turns to face him. <em>I heard that</em>.</p><p>Something had changed. Something has melded.</p><p>And they’re alive.</p><p><em>Alive</em>.</p><p>“Commander, if you ever pull a stunt like that again,” Chakwas reprimands, her voice full of unending love as only an angry mother’s can be, “please do have the decency to warn anyone else about it. Anyone at all. Especially the man you expect to help you with it.” She retreats to her desk with a huff and a secret smile. Ash smiles, relieved, joins her to finish their medical debrief.</p><p>Kaidan sees only John.</p><p>And John sees only love.</p>
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